Our Roots

South Georgia Pecan Company began in 1913 as a small shelling plant owned by the Pearlman family of Valdosta. In 1967, the company became a part of the Beatrice Food Group. With the breakup of Beatrice Foods in 1983, the current owners, the Worn family, purchased the company with a commitment to quality and service that has formed it into the industry leader that it is today. South Georgia Pecan Company is located in Valdosta, Georgia in the heart of Pecan Country. We are committed to producing safe, top quality pecan products for our customers and consumers. We have four plants located within a 1.5 mile radius which are designed and segregated for certain process in the production of pecan products, which include cleaning/grading Inshell pecans, a shelling plant, a finished processing/packaging plant, and a shell grinding facility.

Our Facilities

The in-shell pecan cleaning and grading plant of South Georgia Pecan Company processes in-shell pecans through a series of cleaning stages to remove farm level foreign material picked up during harvesting. Once cleaned, the in-shell pecans will be graded into predetermined size ranges for future processing. This plant is equipped ample cold storage, which includes a 27,000 square foot freezer used to store the in-shell pecans to maximize shelf-life and freshness of the nuts.

We procure pecans from the local community, our home state of Georgia (largest bearing acreage in the country), and all across the “Pecan Belt” which encompasses the lower half of the entire United States. There are many different varieties grown from state-to-state that vary in size, shape, and meat yield. The different varieties vary in price depending on two main characteristics; count per pound and meat yield, although the normal rules of supply and demand apply also. Dealing with the raw material can be challenging as there are many variables that can alter production. Percentage of moisture, nut- meat percentage, size and variety all impact the daily operations of sizing. The finished product is a container weighing approximately 2,000 lbs. ready for shelling. Our facility is capable of grading upwards of 400,000 lbs. a day of ready-to-shell product.

Our shelling plant is used to crack and shell in-shell pecans to extract the nutmeat hidden within the shell and the in-house Quality Control/Micro Laboratory is located on site as well. The shelling plant processes graded in-shell pecans through a conditioning and cracking process. Once cracked, the nutmeat is harvested and dried to lower the moisture content to meet specified levels. The pecans shells produced during the shelling process are sent to our shell grinding facility and the dried nutmeats are shipped to our finished processing plant.

South Georgia Pecan Company operates a state of the art in-house Quality Control/Microbiology Laboratory. Our lab is used to test all products produced each day for a series of pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms using certified and approved methods. Pathogen testing is conducted using PCR methods for analyzing samples, which is the most sensitive technology available because you are looking for the actual DNA of the microorganisms. Physical analysis testing methods are also utilized in our lab for testing moisture levels, halves counts, piece size ranges, etc. to ensure all of our products meet or exceed customer and in-house specifications.